Welcome to the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco document collection.

During the course of civil litigation with certain States Attorneys General, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company produced to plaintiffs more than 6 million pages of documents that were requested by the plaintiffs during pre-trial discovery. Images of those documents, as well as images of another several million pages of documents from other civil smoking and health cases produced since October 25, 1998, are available on this website, with the following exceptions:

• Documents that contain trade secret and confidential information.
• Documents that contain work product and/or attorney-client privileged material.
• Documents that contain certain personnel records that raise privacy concerns and certain third-party information covered by contractual confidentiality obligations.
• Certain oversized documents, videotapes, and other types of materials due to their physical nature will be made available at the physical document depository for State of Minnesota, et al. v. Philip Morris, Inc., et al., No. C1-94-8565 (2D Dist, MN) (referred to as the "Minnesota litigation") rather than at this website.

Under the terms of the Master Settlement Agreement, additional documents will continue to be posted through June 30, 2010. Also, for parties and their lawyers who sign appropriate protective orders, trade secret and confidential documents are available by means of hard copy production or a separate Secure Litigation Website. See "Trade Secrets."

This website conducts searches using the BASIS^TM database developed by Battelle Memorial Institute and its subsidiary, Information Dimensions, Inc., which was subsequently acquired by Open Text Corporation. This software allows for the efficient execution of queries across the extensive underlying database of information. The website interface allows the user to submit queries that search through the complete index of words contained in the database records.

The fields of information that are available for searching include fields established by the Court in State of Minnesota, et al. v. Philip Morris, Inc., et al., No. C1-94-8565 (2nd Dist. MN) as well as fields identified in the November 23, 1998 Master Settlement Agreement. Users should note that these fields and the data contained within them are generated during the course of litigation and may not correspond with the manner or nature in which records may be indexed or arranged by traditional libraries or historical institutions. For example, the documents are not necessarily sequential. Certain privileged documents, personnel documents and documents designated as trade secret and other highly competitively sensitive documents are not available on this website. Therefore numbering gaps may appear between some documents.

The fields that are available and can be searched on this website are:

Significant efforts were made during the design and release phases of this website to ensure quality control in terms of the functions available on this site as well as the data and images accessible through this site. As a result of discussions with representatives from the National Association of Attorneys General and its computer consultants, R.J. Reynolds made over 100 improvements to its previously existing website. R.J. Reynolds also undertook a systematic analysis of database records to maintain and improve data quality in connection with meeting its Master Settlement Agreement obligations. These efforts included complete reviews of fielded data for consistency and spot checking of individual records for accuracy. Nonetheless, much of the information in the fielded data relies on human review and discrepancies may occur. We continue to periodically review the website to improve site content and usability.

An accurate understanding of the meaning and significance of the information in these documents can only be derived by considering the full context surrounding that information. This context includes, but is not limited to: the document as a whole; related contemporaneous documents and discussions within the company; and the events, discussions and issues within the worldwide public health community and society at large at the time the documents were written.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company regrets that it is not equipped to respond to individual questions about the documents posted on this website.